come cast your light on me softly
by Black Alnair
Summary: AU from 3x12. Hook doesn't remember the year back in the Enchanted Forest. All he knows is he cannot find peace until he finds her. Captain Swan, Daddy! Killian (in an unexpected way perhaps). COMPLETE.
1. part i: find me

**Title**: come cast your light on me softly

**Summary**: AU from 3x12. Hook doesn't remember the year back in the Enchanted Forest. All he knows is he cannot find peace until he finds her. Captain Swan, Daddy! Killian (in an unexpected way perhaps).

* * *

_Notes_: In this ficlet, Hook can't remember the year back in the Enchanted Forest and Walsh is just a furniture shop owner (what's with New York settings and furniture shop owners?).

_part i – find me_

He has a new locket around his neck.

She doesn't even know how she knows this. She understands that her memories have returned, that the particulars of her life, feelings – and there are _feelings_, even if she's good at repressing them – are now back as though they have never been cursed away. She does have a second set of memories in her head – the good ones that Regina had gifted her – which makes things a bit confusing, but that has nothing to do with her memory of Hook. She _knows _that the locket is new though it looks old. And she hadn't realized until now that she could remember him in such detail that she would know this.

She doesn't ask about it during the long drive from New York to Storybrooke. She tries not to look at it. But he keeps fiddling with it, rubbing the back of the pendant with his thumb, rolling it around his fingers, pulling lightly at the chain. And she can't help but notice how plain it is, how much it contrasts with the rest of his oversized gaudy jewelry. The simple oval pendant is on a small linked chain and the entire thing looks worn but maybe because of the material. It looks like it is made of pewter perhaps, or some other inexpensive material, and there's a feminine quality to it. The moment she thinks it she knows the locket once belonged to a woman.

* * *

No one remembers. No one knows. What is going on, how they got here, what is real and not real. All they know is time has passed because now Mary Margaret is pregnant and the few children of this town have grown. It is all Emma has to go by. And her gut. And her gut tells her something is wrong. Very wrong.

On top of that, she is full of conflict and guilt. She can't help but think that at this time just last week, she was in her apartment in New York, having pancakes and hot cocoa with her son, thinking about work and her date with Walsh later that night. Now she's looking at the bottom of her cold diner coffee trying to figure out what's so wrong about everyone being back, minus a few other realm memories. She should be happy to be back – she hadn't wanted to leave in the first place – but her life in New York had been pretty good until Hook came to wake her up and she had to leave everything behind.

She thinks she should be angry at Hook but she isn't. She had told him she had Henry, a job, a guy she loved. And he had told her that she would still have Henry and that was most important of all. And the job – sure, turns out being part of the one-woman Storybrooke law enforcement force is not as lucrative as being a bails bond woman had become for her but the job is essentially the same. "Just" with magic. And then, there is the guy she loved. She frowns as she considers this. She cares about Walsh, thought she loved him, but now that her memories are back, fiercer feelings are back too, forged by a harder life, more challenging fights and a love that crossed realms. Her feelings for Walsh now feel far too muted against the wild backdrop of her storybook life. It doesn't make her feel less badly about how it ended, how it had to end. But she feels better now that she has stopped to consider what exactly she has left behind. And perhaps it's not that much at all. _Perhaps there's a man she… _But she can't dwell on that, she decides; she definitely has a problem (of another kind) in front of her.

"We have a problem," Hook says without preamble as he slides in the booth across from her.

"Tell me about it," Emma mutters sardonically but she has trouble keeping the side of her mouth from quirking up. It's ridiculous of course but it was almost as though Hook had been planning for the right moment to say what she was thinking. It was just a coincidence. Though Henry might call it fate. Emma shakes her head and tries to focus on the present once again.

"Aye, so you've heard then?"

"Wait, what?" she asks as she breaks her stare-down contest with her coffee. "What have you heard?"

Hook doesn't even blink at her obvious inattention. Instead, he leans forward and his hand is fiddling with that necklace again.

He tilts his head at her. "What?"

It takes her a moment to realize that he notices – of course he would notice – that something is off with her. That she should be thinking of curses and memory loss, danger and evil, but she can't focus on anything except the damn necklace around his neck. "Where did you get that?"

He follows her gaze to his own hand and opens his fingers to look at the locket lying on his palm. He blinks at it once – slowly – before he shrugs. "I'm a pirate. I acquire things."

His eyes flicker back up to her. But she can tell he is preoccupied with the locket.

"Milah's?" she asks before she can bite her tongue. She knows what a bad wound it is so she does not know why she would bring it up. A part of her whispers that it is to get his attention, to _know_, and it makes her feel ashamed because she thinks that it is true. She knows she hurts him when she doesn't mean to. She should not hurt him by picking at his scars.

Turns out though that Hook is really distracted because he barely reacts. "No..." he says, gaze away from her and now entirely focused on the locket in his hand. "I would've remembered."

Eventually, he says, "Regardless, we have more important things to do." But she notices he has not let go of the necklace. "People have gone missing."

* * *

It is difficult to catalog the missing people as the Enchanted Forest didn't exactly have a registry that came to Storybrooke when it was created and recreated. They suspect that there are actually more people missing than have been reported. But the list they have is already daunting and it only continues to grow. They have searched abandoned homes and the woods, the warehouses by the docks and decrepit structures along the beach.

They have made absolutely no headway.

Then children start going missing. The Lost Boys, the nuns report.

Hook pales when he hears the news, his fist clenching and unclenching and Emma is suddenly reminded that Hook, in his own way, is a man of honor, that he has a code, that there are lines that he has never and would never cross, even though he is a pirate. More than that, he, amazingly enough, seems to like children. He is natural with Henry and Robin Hood's son, Roland, open in a way that he isn't even with her.

"We need to find them," he grits out.

"We will." Her hand unconsciously moves towards his but she stops herself in time.

Hook unclenches his fist slowly, only to reach up to clasp the locket tightly, holding onto it like a lifeline.

* * *

She doesn't see him for three days and she fears that he has become another name on her list, another failure she must accept. But she does not accept it, her search becomes more frantic, her wits fraying at the ends.

She feels silly when he wanders into the diner one day. But it is overshadowed by her sense of relief. She didn't realize she had been holding her breath.

His eyes scan the diner until they land on her. As he nears, she can see he looks like hell, like he hasn't slept in three days. She probably looks the same – she also hasn't slept in three days. It's as though they are running along parallel lines, mirroring each other. She tries not to think too deeply about this.

He slides into the booth across from her. He is the kind of man that looks you straight in the eye. Today, he looks over right shoulder.

"I have a favor to request."

He seems nervous, so unlike him, that she immediately agrees to help. His anxiety seems to cause her anxiety and she swallows hard.

He picks up the pendant around his neck and her stomach suddenly plummets. She knows what he is going to ask.

"I need your assistance to locate her," he says as he holds onto the necklace.

Emma sighs. She wants to help him – she really does – even if it hurts her, because that's what he does every day – helps her even though it pains him – but she does not know how. "How?"

Hook pulls out a scrap of parchment and slides it over to her. It reminds her of dinner in New York, when Hook had taken Walsh's vacant seat, and given her Neal's address. Though she spent a whole year in New York, her memories of the city seem to be mostly of Hook.

She looks at the parchment. A spell is written in his fancy old-fashioned hand. "Regina helped me find this. It's a locator spell. Using an object that is meaningful to find the person you lost."

He doesn't have to mention the locket.

"There's no magic here, Hook," she sighs. She tries to tell herself there is no relief in it.

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Even Regina can't..."

"Regina can't access magic, I know. But you _are_ magic." He has so much faith in her. And she realizes that she is scared of failing him. But she doesn't want to disappoint him, she doesn't want him to disappear again, she doesn't want to be the source of his misery, even if helping him will hurt her.

"Okay, okay, I'll try."

"Thank you, lass," he breathes.

"Who is she?"

Hook smiles faintly. Only his smiles can contain so much grief. "I don't know. I just know I will not be at peace until I find her."

* * *

_"Come with me, lass."_

She had started shaking her head. She has no right to come. But in the end, she agrees because she wants to know, needs to know, not only who has earned Hook's heart, but how she feels about it. Because as hard as it is for her to accept love and happiness, it seems she can't turn away from tragedy.

"There," he says, his hand going to the locket. They are deep in the woods, in a dense area that they have sworn they've cased before. But now there's an old rundown cabin with no lights on.

She nods towards him and they creep forward, her gun drawn, his sword in his hand. The door is locked and Hook takes a step back before running towards it and shouldering his way through. His sword is up, her gun is up, she sweeps the room with her flashlight.

They have found the missing children.

_Children._

She swallows hard at the sight of their dirty thin faces. She glances at Hook and is arrested by how very pissed off he is. His fist is clenched in that way of his – because she knows him _that well _– and the rest of his body is shaking in anger.

Suddenly, Hook stills. His eyes clear and Emma knows he has found her. She follows his line of sight to a familiar face, to wide dark eyes that light up in recognition.

"Father!"

And Wendy Darling is hurtling through the crowd and Hook is trying to make his way too without running into the other children and it is like a fairybook ending the way Wendy jumps into Hook's open arms and he spins them in a circle, in a beautiful world of their own.

* * *

**A/N**: I originally had no plans to write any Captain Swan fanfic as they are already ruining my life but I just couldn't resist any longer. The idea of Hook adopting Wendy has been running around in my head for some time (John and Michael wouldn't be alive). I don't know how this thought initially entered my head – I suppose I'm a sucker for Daddy! Killian with a daughter. In any case, I pictured this occurring after they returned from Neverland while Emma was studiously ignoring Hook and Hook needing a way to heal while giving Emma the space she needed / giving Neal a chance. But having this occur during the year Hook is away from Emma works too. Next part addresses Emma's reaction to Daddy! Killian and the changes to their relationship now that he remembers his adopted daughter and has her back (in other words, _feels _and _admissions_).


	2. part ii: dreams come slow

_part ii – dreams come slow_

He has not relinquished his hold on Wendy since they have been reunited. The same can be said of Wendy, her arms wound tightly around Hook's neck, one of her hands clutching onto his locket – _her _locket – as he carries her while ushering the other children out of the woods. His hold on her remains tight even after they return the children to the convent and they have gathered around the dining table at Regina's (his insistence).

"Whoever cursed us does not want us to remember that year away," Hook says to the gathering before him.

"So what happened, Captain?"

Emma lifts a brow. Regina does not snark and tell Hook that this is obvious – a front-running theory they've had for awhile – all but confirmed now. Instead, Regina is polite, even addressing Hook by his title. This night is full of surprises.

"I must confess I cannot remember everything," Hook says, shaking his head. "But when I saw Wendy, I remembered _her_. I remembered finding her near the docks, in the Enchanted Forest."

"In the Enchanted Forest?" Snow asks. "So we really did go back?"

"Aye. I remember you there, your Highness. Your hair…" he pauses as he tries to picture their return. "It was long."

"It was how I wore it back then," Snow nods in confirmation.

"But most of it is still unclear. Most of what I remembered is just of Wendy," he says as he turns to his girl, his look soft and fond.

"It's the same for me," Wendy offers. "I know my brothers had died – some sort of animal attack," a pained expression crosses her face until she buries the crown of her head in the crook of Hook's neck, "and I had been on my own, scraping by, when Father found me. He saved me."

"Nah, _you_ saved me, lass."

Hook is always making grand declarations as though he is talking about the weather. Emma used to think it was at odds with the usual flourish and flamboyance which he does things – after all, the man even walks with a swagger – but she has learned that doing things by halves is not Hook's way – giving himself over entirely is the only way for him – so making an observation about the weather is the same as any remark he may make. It's in this they are not alike. Not that she spends extraordinary amounts of time thinking of Hook or comparing them (except she does maybe). But she thinks that though he says he did not remember Wendy, he really did, because if he loves her like she knows he loves, then he loves her with every fiber of his being, with every beat of his heart and no curse, no matter how powerful, no matter how evil, can ever wipe Wendy from his memory. Emma knows this to be true because, like him - and here, they are the same (it taunts and sings to her in her head and beats elsewhere too) - she remembers things too - as deep and blue as any ocean she has ever seen, as she has ever dreamed - though she had been cursed herself.

He continues on, telling them all he can remember, but it is not much. He left the group in search of the Jolly Roger, with no intent of returning, when he found Wendy – alone and half-starving – and gave her shelter. But what was meant to be temporary became permanent and though they sailed the seas together and became a family, Hook thought she should not have a broken-hearted (though healing) pirate as her only companion and returned to the Queen's castle. He did not know the details – or perhaps did not recall them – but the castle had initially been taken by another witch. Regina with the help of a bandit had taken it back before Hook's return.

"You mean, I worked with a forest thief?" Regina snorts.

"Aye, and you lived with Snow and Charming from what I recalled," he says with a lift of his brow.

Talk about six impossible things before having enough shots, Emma thinks.

"You would…" Hook goes on, tilting his head to the side as he reaches into the recesses of his mind, "walk with me sometimes when I took Wendy to the village school."

Emma just _barely _manages to stop herself from blurting out something along the lines of – _what the hell?_ Not that it is any of her business what Hook did in that year away but the thought of him taking long walks with Regina in the forest unsettles her in an inexplicable way (or not so inexplicable way).

"This witch though?" Charming is asking.

Right, important stuff, Emma, she scolds herself.

"Alas, I know nothing about her and suspect I did not know much else, even back then. Only that she had taken Regina's castle whilst everyone was in this quaint town and that upon our return, Regina successfully took the castle back."

"This witch must have been the one who cursed us though!" Snow exclaimed.

"I am afraid my memories alone will not solve this mystery," Hook sighs but after a moment of reflection, his gaze becomes determined and he sits up straight as he continues to hold Wendy. "My memories do offer a path forward."

Emma meets his blue-eyed gaze and it seems that they are suddenly thinking the same thing. "People have been separated for a purpose," she states.

She can't help but smile in satisfaction when he agrees, "Aye, so they do not remember each other or remember what they mean to each other in the Enchanted Forest."

"But Charming and I were not separated," Snow points out.

"No, but everyone remembers what happened _before_ Pan's curse returned all of you to the Enchanted Forest," Emma says as she tries to work out what this could mean.

"What appears to be key are relationships formed during our time in the Enchanted Forest," Hooks says before nodding towards the Charmings. "No point in separating you two anyway. You will always find each other."

"Maybe. But perhaps, also," Emma says, "whoever we are up against doesn't have the power to wipe your memories completely."

"Then whoever this witch is," Regina smiles, "is not as powerful as me."

Emma rolls her eyes at the gleeful look on Regina's face. "That means we need to find these missing people. And we need to reunite them with people who are important to them."

"But we don't even know who the missing people are and _they _don't know who is important to them," David frowns.

Hook smirks at Regina. "I think I know where to start."

Regina narrows her eyes at Hook and looks at him cautiously. "Where?"

"It will have to wait until tomorrow morning," Hook says slyly, adjusting his grip on Wendy who has fallen asleep against his shoulder. "I'm taking my girl home."

* * *

Emma finds herself following Hook back to his ship. Hook is absently stroking a sleeping Wendy's hair as he walks. Emma has never thought of Hook as a father before but now she can't help but remember each interaction the pirate has had with her son and Robin's son, of the way he reacted when children started disappearing, of the way he holds Wendy like he will never let go. And she knows, he won't.

"You remembered her, you know."

Hook looks over at her, raising his eyebrow quietly in question.

"You were always fiddling with that locket," Emma says as she points to it.

"Aye, it was hers."

"So, she was always with you. Your love for her was too powerful to be forgotten."

Hook smiles softly, in acknowledgement, in thanks, and she likes it. She has a lot to be thankful for when it comes to him - he has come back for her time and time again, saved her son, restored her memories and stood by her side while asking for close to nothing in return - but she has done very little for him that warrants his thanks. They continue their walk in companionable silence until they reach the docks. When she looks at him, she is surprised to find him looking grim, his brow furrowed in thought, the edges of his mouth turned down slightly.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, lass."

Now she is frowning. "That is a lie."

"Perhaps this is not the time. I should take Wendy to bed."

But Emma is not ready to let him go yet so she ends up blurting out the first thing she can think of. "You seem to have made friends with Regina."

"So I have." He pauses on the gangplank before continuing on. She follows him up to the deck. "I don't know if it is a residue of my relationship with the Queen back in the Enchanted Forest or not but we have been companionable here."

"Right..." she trails off as they continue to the Captain's Quarters and he sets Wendy gently down on the narrow bed there. She watches him tuck the blankets around Wendy and smooth the hair off her forehead.

"Who do you want Regina to meet?" she quietly asks.

"Pardon?" He had been intently paying attention to Wendy, not her.

"Back at Regina's. You said you knew where to start. I thought that meant you wanted her to meet someone."

"Ah, so you are right Swan. It is Robin of Locksley."

"Robin Hood?"

"Yes, it did not occur to me that the Queen and the Outlaw did not know each other in this realm but of course, I did not realize until I saw my Wendy that I had forgotten about _relationships, _not people I've met. While my memories are not sharp, I believe they made quite a formidable team back in the Enchanted Forest."

Emma can't help but throw Hook a questioning look. She's met Robin and he's _nice_, like really really nice. She can't even imagine him being in the same room as Regina. Even though Regina is no longer evil, her sarcasm would probably burn most people alive. Except her and Hook, she muses.

"How did you know Robin from before?" she asks quietly, curious. "You must have if you remember him."

"I don't want to ruin my reputation as a big, bad villain," he gives a soft chuckle.

"I hate to break it to you, Captain, but I never thought you were a villain."

Hook pauses but he does not say anything and it is too dark to make out his features.

Wendy stirs a bit and Emma takes that as a sign she should leave. Before she can turn away though, Wendy is reaching out. She seems to find the locket around Hook's neck like its a compass calling for her. "Father," she murmurs, still half-asleep, Her fingers tangle in the necklace.

"I'm here poppet, I'm here." Hook leans forward to kiss Wendy on her forehead. She settles down again and he whispers "I love you," reverently, whole-heartily. It sounds nothing like talking about the weather and Emma hadn't realized that she had been waiting for him to say it to her until he says it to someone else.


	3. part iii: i've waited here forever

_part iii - __i've waited here forever for you (i carry it in my heart)_

She stirs her hot chocolate until all the whipped cream is nothing more than a misshapen swirl in her cup. She does not want to admit to the metaphor that is staring her in the face but then Ruby comes by, eyes flicking to the empty space across from Emma, and asks, not unkindly, "Not coming again today?"

Emma just shakes her head as Ruby clears the extra set of unused utensils and plates. He's busy, of course. He has a daughter to look after, adoption papers to fill, school meetings, and no one else to help, unlike Emma who has an entire town to look after Henry.

She's thinking so hard about his absence that she is startled when he slides in across from her. He has a shit-eating grin stretching across his face.

"What did you do?" she demands to cover up the rush of feelings that trembles through her.

"Nothing," he says in a way that means 'everything'.

She tells him so, with narrowed eyes, but he just chuckles. She realizes she hasn't seen him so light hearted in a long time (and perhaps never in such a genuine way) so she forgets the pretense and simply allows herself to enjoy the sight of it.

"Regina has been downright stubborn about meeting our mutual friend, Robin of Locksley. I can't rightly say I understand her hesitancy - Tink says there's history there, _before_ last year - but Robin knows naught of it, only knows of Regina as the Evil Queen and has no interest in crossing paths with her." Hook sighs dramatically. "Neither of them could be convinced this is for the greater good."

"So why are you so happy?" Emma leans forward, pulled in by his mischievousness.

"Because I'm a pirate." He also leans in and drops his voice, like he's going to tell her a schoolyard secret. "And I know how to get things done. These two wayward hearts will not be parted for much longer."

"Wayward hearts? Wait, are you _matchmaking_?" Emma has to sit back to process what Hook has been doing away from her.

"I wouldn't call it something as banal as that," he scoffs. "You make me sound like a meddling old hag with nothing better to do."

His smiles winsomely and his tone changes.

"What you really mean is I've been aligning the stars, changing the cosmos, bringing True Love together," he says in a playful sing-song voice.

"It's matchmaking," she counters but she's fighting a grin.

"It does have a higher purpose, Swan. We need to reconnect those who have been separated by the Curse. Whoever did this understands the strength of familial and non-familial bonds. By dividing us up, they mean to weaken us. We will not be defeated," he says as he reaches up to grasp onto the locket he still wears, his reminder of what he is fighting for, what he is protecting.

Before Emma can respond to Hook's impassioned speech, Robin ambles into Granny's diner, looking around until he finds the pirate who waves him over with his namesake.

Emma rolls her eyes. She can tell what's about to happen from a mile away. "He's not suspicious at all?" Emma asks, arching her brow.

"For a thief, he's quite trusting," Hook smiles.

Robin is almost at their table when the bell over the diner door chimes again and Wendy is pulling Regina in, loudly thanking her for walking her to Granny's. Robin turns, Regina looks up, and they remember.

Hook smiles smugly as Wendy slides into the booth next to him. She clasps his hand which still holds the locket before pulling back so they can share a firm handshake and exchange formal nods for a job well done.

"You're going to make a pirate out of her," Emma muses as she takes in the nearly identical grins on Hook's and Wendy's faces.

"I am a pirate," Wendy declares proudly as she looks steadily at Emma. Emma can't help but think she is being studied.

Later, when Hooks heads over to the counter to pay for their meal, Wendy says without any preamble, "If you break his heart, you will have to deal with _me_."

Emma decides she needs to ask if Wendy has always had this much sass or if she picked it up from Hook, but she thinks she already knows the answer.

* * *

It is a slow process piecing everything together but as it turns out Hook's matchmaking has served a higher purpose (as he likes to remind her with a waggle of his eyebrows). Regina and Robin remember teaming together against Regina's half-sister, one of dwarves apparently had _quite _the love affair with an apothecarist forced to supply Zelena with powerful herbs and a number of people now recall personal encounters with flying monkeys.

"But what could she possibly want?" Emma sighs as she slides into the booth at Granny's.

Hook and Wendy sit across from her. It has become so habitual Emma could almost imagine this happening every day - on normal, non-green witch hunting days - as though mealtimes are reserved for their get-togethers, the way families do it. But they are not a family. Hook and Wendy are family. And Henry is not with them because he does not remember. They have no talisman to bring him back, no known triggers for his memory. And part of her thinks maybe Henry shouldn't remember, shouldn't be here.

Wendy eyes her for a moment as though she can read Emma's thoughts. Emma taps down her desire to run. Not just from Wendy's stare but from the whole damn town. Because that's not what Henry would have wanted her to do. That's why she came back in the first place. Nothing at all to do with a blue-eyed pirate of course. Who also doesn't know how to give up, who wouldn't run but fights every day of his centuries-long life. And when has she started looking at him as her own personal hero anyway?

"How come you're not exhausted too?" Emma says as she slouches in her seat. She's tired of denying herself, tired of not finding answers; she just wants to kick some ass and call it a day, but Zelena isn't coming out to play.

Hook merely blinks at her. "How can I be exhausted when there is so much here to protect?"

Emma rolls her eyes even as her heart clenches a bit. Stupid pirate and his stupid grand declarations.

He lifts his coffee mug. "And this magical beverage."

"Aye, aye," she says and taps his mug with hers.

The corners of his mouth lift up and she can't help but stare a little too long.

"I'm not tired either," Wendy adds unhelpfully.

Emma takes a long drink of her coffee before sighing, "It just feels like we've been running in circles."

"We're not. No one builds an army in one night, love. As each person remembers, we gain an ally and just as important, we gain information. Someone knows what she is after."

"How do you even know what to look for?" Emma asks curiously. Hook's been doing most of the matchmaking really. She's just been along for the ride. They'd be walking along the docks, Wendy's hand around her father's namesake, Emma trying not to stare too much, when Hook will suddenly beeline to an unsuspecting Storybrooke citizen and declare them found. It's like magic.

But apparently not for Hook whose hand goes to the ever present locket. It's hard to imagine him without it now. "I just look for people who look like they are missing something. I have quite the eye for this sort of thing."

"You do. You find the lost," she says. And of course, she is thinking of herself.

* * *

It's the day after. The day after it is all over, after everyone's memories have been returned and Zelena is finally gone. _Ding dong_ and all. She should feel elated, relieved - and she is - but there's a part of her that is anxious too, because now the fight is over, what else is too?

It's dark when she looks in on Henry, finds him snug in his bed at the loft, storybook open, close to him. She kisses his head - she is so lucky to have such a great kid - puts on her coat and heads out.

Dawn is just breaking the horizon when she reaches the docks and for a moment, she thinks she should turn back around. This is the first time she has come looking for Hook. She takes a half step back - she can wait at Granny's - but _no_, she can't. It is too many hours before their usual lunchtime meeting. She can't bear him not showing up.

Like the sailor that he is, he's awake, and pouring oats into a bowl.

"That's too healthy," she remarks.

"Aye, that's Wendy's fault," he says, nodding to the girl who has just wandered into the galley barefooted.

Wendy looks at her curiously - it's the least challenging look she's given Emma so far. Emma doesn't actually mind Wendy's hard looks so much anymore - at first, she was mildly offended, maybe even a little scared of the challenge issuing from her brown eyes, but now she's come to appreciate that someone else takes Hook's interest to heart.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Swan?"

The silence stretches - it is both too long and not long enough. Hook pulls out a chair for her, the scraping of the chair against the ship's planks somehow leading her to blurt out, "I didn't know if you were coming to lunch today."

"We always come."

She wants to point out there was three days - _three _days - when he did not come. But it seems pretty petty to point that out when it was just after he was reunited with Wendy.

"But things are different now."

"Aye, we're not fighting a crazed villain this time. Most people enjoy that, Swan. I'll even venture to say that lunch meetings are better that way."

She nods. He nods back. Wendy starts eating her oatmeal.

"Henry will be there."

"Good," he says. "We'll be complete."

Is he _real_? she faintly wonders. She finds herself dropping in the seat he has pulled out for her, her knees knocking against his under the table, but she does not move.

"How did you know to come for me when you came back to Storybrooke?" she ends up bursting out...without preamble.

"What else would I do? You deserved to be with the ones you loved."

"So you just knew?"

"Knew I had to come save you? Yes. The Curse didn't make me forget _you_."

"Good," she breathes out. "If it had, you wouldn't have been able to come for me."

"Well I don't know about that." Hook holds the locket against his heart.

"You have something to remember me by?" she asks, surprised. She hasn't given him anything, certainly nothing like the locket Wendy had given him, has barely even given him hope. She had been so fearful of the unknown, of the meaning of the locket, of the year lost, that she lost sight of what was right in front of her this entire time.

She can't help herself when she asks, "And what do you have to remember me?" She catches Wendy looking up from her cereal.

Hook grins the way he did before she kissed him in Neverland - boyish, cocky, challenging. Her heart skips a beat.

"I did not have an object to remember you by but I wanted to be sure I would never forget you. I couldn't remember getting it when I first sought you out, but I _knew_," he says to her. He uses his hook to move the vee of his shirt aside and she sees, tattooed on his chest, right above his heart, coordinates written in a simple elegant script. "I knew these were for you."

"How? What are the coordinates for?"

"The Swan constellation."

"You were always the sentimental kind," she says in awe as she reaches out with a finger to trace the tattoo. "So I'll always be there," she says as she lays her palm flat against his chest, over the coordinates.

"So you'll always be there," Hook agrees. "So I'll always know where my heart is, so I'll always carry you in my heart."

Because he always has to add something to outdo her. But she knows how to best him. She winks at Wendy who is rolling her eyes behind her father's back before she pulls Hook in by his shirt for a kiss.

"Aren't you going to give me something to remember _you _by?" she teases him.

Hook gives her a grin that is all pirate. "Oh, I plan on it."

"Good. Because I want to carry it always."

* * *

As much as she loves the engagement ring he gives her, she cherishes her wedding band even more because it matches the one he wears on his locket.

* * *

_**-Fin-**_


End file.
